Archaeology, Politics and Islamicate Cultural Heritage in Europe - David J. Govantes-Edwards
4. Gendered Pasts: Women in al-Andalus
Archaeology, Politics and Islamicate Cultural Heritage in Europe - David J. Govantes-Edwards
Mikel Herrán [+]
University of Leicester
Mikel Herrán is a PhD candidate at the University of Leicester. He sat his undergraduate studies in Archaeology in the Universidad Complutense (Madrid, Spain). He then completed an MA in the Archaeology of the Arab and Islamic World at UCL Qatar with a dissertation on Islamisation and Gender in Al-Andalus. He has worked in several projects involving Archaeology and Museums in the Gulf region and is currently working as a researcher for the project ‘The Transformation of the Moroccan Landscape in the Early Islamic Period’ at UCL Qatar, in collaboration with INSAP (Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine).
Nicola Clarke [+]
Newcastle University
Nicola Clark is a lecturer at Newcastle University (United Kingdom). Her work as a historian focuses on medieval Islamic Iberia (al-Andalus), with particular interests in historiography and social history. Her teaching, however, ranges across the Islamic world, from the time of the Prophet Muhammad down to the early 17th century. HEr primary research focus at present is on representations of gender - particularly masculinity - in legal and literary texts from medieval Islamic Iberia (al-Andalus). She also remains interested in medieval Islamic intellectual life, especially historiography, geography and travel writing in Arabic.
Description
The present chapter has a two-fold aim: to discuss, in archaeological and historical terms, how gender can be performed and enacted in Islamicate societies; and to put the focus on women and their position within these societies. The study of women in al-Andalus is inlaid with multi-layered signifiers that influence gender performance beyond religion, including ethnicity, or coexistence with non-Muslim populations. In trying to go beyond the image of Islamicate women as ‘Other’, this chapter will study how hegemonies of femininity were created and encoded, taking a closer look onto domestic spaces, as well as the written sources.